This invention is directed to a system and method for conveniently and accurately storing and calculating business expenses.
Many professionals such as business people, salesmen, truckdrivers, pilots, etc. travel very extensively while practicing their professions. These people typically have substantial expenses for such items as food, lodging, transportation and many other items. The specific expenses must be categorized and accurate records kept in order to enable the traveler to submit accurate expense reports for reimbursement and tax purposes. Frequent travelers, therefore, are typically faced with the laborious and time-consuming task of categorizing the business expenses and submitting detailed reports for reimbursement and tax purposes. There, therefore, is a need for a system and method for accurately and conveniently storing and calculating business expenses at the convenience of the frequent traveler. The present invention fulfills these long-felt needs.
The invention provides a convenient means for the user to enter business data. The disclosed expense storage and processing system and method can be tailored to operate in several environments such as a lap computer, desk-top computer, pocket calculator or mainframe computer. The data input can be accomplished through any of several available means such as typing, keying or through advanced systems such as voice entry. Manual data entry can be accomplished on hardware integral to the storage and calculating system or through external hardware interfaced to a computing system, such as a modem or cellular telephone.
The invention has many distinct advantages. The software is broken down into modules so that every data entry category and special function is a self-contained program. Data entries can be easily modified by the use of a menu driven modify function. All business expense categories are provided for with the system and include such expenses as mileage, meals, lodging, telephone, telegraph and other communications, fuel, parking, tolls, miscellaneous items, gratuities, transportation, business conferences and entertainment. The invention is a user friendly system and is menu driven having specialized messages to prompt the user to respond with the correct information. The user supplied information is immediately verified for correctness upon entry of the data. All data entries and user supplied text descriptions are stored by the system automatically. All data are separated into specific categories immediately upon entry. The invention includes a feature which allows the user to enter and change data to a module, and the changes are automatically associated with data previously or subsequently entered and appears on hard copy reports generated by the system. The user can enter unique identifying titles and descriptive information for inclusion on printed reports. Mileage data can be entered using a direct mileage input or an odometer entry. Specific data identification such as persons names, meals, hotels, etc. can be entered by the user at will. The system includes a unique tag function whereby business reports for weeks or even months canb e entered at one session. Data can be provided to a disc memory, displayed on a CRT monitor, or output to a printer for a hard copy.